PM cites Waituna as role model

The Government has highlighted Waituna Lagoon as it sets out policies to protect New Zealand waterways from intensive farming.

Prime Minister John Key has announced the Government will allocate $100 million during 10 years to retire land next to important waterways such as Waituna.

Regional councils could apply to the $100m fund to help them buy farmland near significant waterways, ensuring the waterways were protected, he said.

Key, along with environment minister Amy Adams and primary industries minister Nathan Guy, strolled on the Waituna Lagoon boardwalk before announcing the policy yesterday.

The funding would enable councils to replicate what had happened at Waituna, where DOC bought farmland surrounding the lagoon, Key said.

It would also allow farmers to retire parts of their land and put the capital into other projects, such as upgrading their effluent systems, he said.

Adams believed Waituna was one of the best examples of a natural coastal lagoon in the country.

The community and regional council

Prime Minister John Key during his visit to Waituna Lagoon yesterday. had worked hard to improve water quality in the catchment, she said.

Key’s announcement was met with a positive response from those involved in the Waituna project.

Environment Southland chairwoman Ali Timms said it was good that the prime minister understood the work the community partnership had put in at Waituna.

Environment Southland would consider applying to the new fund to further its efforts at Waituna before looking elsewhere in the region, she said.

It would allow the partnership to tar- get its work, because at least 80 per cent of nutrient loading was coming from about 5 per cent of the Waituna catchment, she said.

Waituna farmer Ewen Pirie said it was nice the Government knew how much work and heartache had been involved in getting the lagoon to where it was today.

‘‘We’ve come a long way in three years.’’

The National Party also announced all dairy farmers would be required to fence streams on their properties by 2017. The penalties for farmers found without fenced waterways have yet to be decided.

Guy said about 90 per cent of the fencing had already been completed and the Government would look to intensive lowland beef cattle farmers next.

However, Green Party co-leader Dr Russel Norman said National’s announcement was an election Band-Aid on a gaping wound. It did not address intensification of land use, the main cause of water pollution, he said.

There were catchments in Southland, such as Waituna, where further dairy conversions were inappropriate because there were already too many cows and too much pollution, Norman said.